The Carter Girls

  CHAPTER III.

  SILK STOCKINGS AND LAMB CHOPS.

  "Well! What are we to do about it?" queried Nan as the front door closedon the doctor and their precious torment.

  "Do? Do what has come to us to do as quickly as we can. I am going tosee that mother's clothes are packed and father's, too. It does seemstrange to be looking after his things. Oh, girls, just think how wehave always let him do it himself! I can't remember even having darned asock for him in all my life," and Douglas gave a little sob. "This is notime for bawling, though, I am going to let Dr. Wright see that I am notjust a doll baby."

  "Dr. Wright, indeed!" sniffed Helen. "Hateful, rude thing!"

  "Why, Helen, I don't see why you need have it in for him. I think he wasjust splendid! But I can't wait to tell you what I think about him; Imust get busy." Douglas picked up her burden with very much her father'slook and hastened off to do her young and inexperienced best.

  "As for saying we can't see Father before he goes, it is nothing but hisarbitrariness that dictates such nonsense," stormed Helen to the twoyounger girls. "He is just constituting himself boss of the whole Carterfamily. I intend to see Father and let him know how much I love him. I'dlike to know how it would help any to have poor dear Daddy go offwithout once seeing his girls. Hasn't he always been seeing us andhaven't we always taken all our troubles to him? How would we like it ifhe'd let us go on a trip and not come near to wish us _bon voyage_? Yousilly youngsters can be hoodwinked by this bumptious young doctor if youlike, but I just bet you he can't control me! I've a great mind to go upto Father's room right this minute."

  "If you go, I'm going, too," from Lucy.

  "Neither one of you is going," said Nan quietly. "Helen, you are actingthis way just because you are ashamed of yourself. You ought to beashamed. I know I am so mortified I can hardly hold up my head. We havebeen actually criminal in our selfishness. I don't intend ever as longas I live to get a new dress or a new hat or a new anything, and when Ido, I'm going to shop on the wrong side of Broad and get the verycheapest and plainest I can find."

  "Nonsense! What does this ugly young man know of our affairs and whatmoney Daddy has in the bank? I don't see that he is called on to tellus when we shall and shan't make bills. He is pretending that our ownFather is crazy or something. Won't answer for the consequences! Ireckon he won't. Why should he be right in his diagnosis any more thanDr. Davis or Dr. Drew or Dr. Slaughter or any of the rest of them?Nervous prostration! Why, that is a woman's disease. I bet Daddy will begood and mad when he finds out what this young idiot is giving him. Howwe will tease him!"

  "But Dr. Wright is not an idiot and is not ugly and is doing the verybest he can do. Do you think he liked giving it to us so? Of course hedidn't. I could see he just hated it. He would have let us alone excepthe sees we haven't a ray of sense among us, except maybe Douglas. Sheshowed almost human intelligence."

  "Speak for yourself, Miss Nan. Maybe you haven't any sense, but, thankyou, I've got just as much as Douglas or that nasty old Dr. Wright oranybody else, in fact."

  "Well, take in your sign then! You certainly are behaving like a nutnow."

  "And you? You think it shows sense to say that man is not ugly? Why, Icould have done a better job on a face with a hatchet. He's got a muglike Stony Man, that big mountain up at Luray that looks like a man."

  "That's just what I thought," said Nan, "and that is what I liked abouthim. He looked kind of like a rocky cliff and his eyes were like blueflowers, growing kind of high up, out of reach, but once he smiled atme and I knew they were not out of reach, really. When he smiled sureenough and showed his beautiful white teeth, it made me think of the suncoming out suddenly on the mountain cliff."

  "Well, Nan, if you can get some poetry out of this extremely commonplaceyoung man you are a wonder. I am going down to see about my new hat, soI'll bid you good-by."

  "If you are getting another new hat, I intend to have one, too!"clamored Lucy.

  "Helen," said Douglas, coming back into the library. "Of course you aregoing to countermand the order for the hat that, after all, you do notreally need."

  "Countermand it! Why, please?"

  "You heard what Dr. Wright said, surely. You must have taken in theseriousness of this business."

  "Seriousness much! I heard a very bumptious young doctor holding forthon what is no doubt his first case, laying down the law to us as thoughhe were kin to us about what we shall eat and wear!"

  "Helen, you astonish me! I thought you thought that you loved Fathermore than any of us."

  "So I do! None of you could love him as much as I do. I love him so muchthat I do not intend to stand for this nonsense about his going off formonths on a dirty old boat without ever even being allowed to hug hisgirls. I bet he won't let this creature boss him any more than I will.Daddy said I could have another hat just so I get a blue one. He doesn'tthink the one I got is becoming, either," and Helen flounced off up toher room.

  "Douglas, what do you think is the matter with her? I have never seenHelen act like this before," said Nan anxiously.

  "I think she is trying to shut her eyes to Father's condition. Helennever could stand anything being the matter with Father. You know shealways did hate and despise doctors, too. Has ever since she was alittle girl when they took out her tonsils. She seemed to think it wastheir fault. She will come to herself soon," and Douglas wiped offanother one of the tears that would keep coming no matter how hard shetried to hold them back.

  Indeed, Helen was a puzzle to her sisters, and had they met her for thefirst time as you, my readers have, no doubt they would have formed thesame opinion of her as you must have: a selfish, heartless, headstronggirl. Now Helen was in reality none of these terrible things, exceptheadstrong. Thoughtless she was and spoiled, but generous to a fault,with a warm and loving heart. Her love for her father was intense andshe simply would not see that he was ill. As Douglas said, she dislikedand mistrusted all doctors. If the first and second and third were wrongin their diagnoses, why not the fourth? As for this absurd talk aboutmoney--what business was it of this young stranger to put his finger intheir financial pie?

  She shut her mind up tight and refused to understand what Dr. Wrighthad endeavored to explain to them, that there was no time to call inconsultation their old friends and relatives. Besides, he wanted noexcitement for the sick man, no adieux from friends, no bustle orconfusion. He just wanted to spirit his patient away and get him out ofsight of land as fast as possible.

  How could a perfect stranger understand her dear father better than she,his own daughter, did? Nervous prostration, indeed! Why, her father hadnerves of steel. You could fire a pistol off right by his ear and hewould not bat an eyelash! She worked herself up even to thinking thatthey were doing a foolish thing to allow this beetle-browed young man tocarry off their mother and father, sending them to sea in a leaky boat,no doubt, with some plot for their destruction all hatched up with thisship's surgeon, this one time classmate.

  "To be sure, he was nice to Bobby," she said to herself as she sat inher room, undecided whether to go get the new hat in spite of Douglas orperhaps twist the other one around so it would be more becoming. "Thatmay be part of his deep laid scheme--to get the confidence of the childand maybe kidnap him.

  "I'll give in about the hat, but I'll not give in about seeing Daddybefore he goes--I'm going to see him right this minute and find out formyself just how sick he is, and if he, too, is hypnotized into thinkingthis doctor man is any good. He shan't go away if he doesn't want to.Poor little Mumsy is too easy and confiding."

  So Helen settled this matter to her own satisfaction, convincing herselfthat it was really her duty to go see her father and unearth themachinations of this scheming Dr. Wright, who was so disapproving ofher. That really was where the shoe pinched with poor Helen: hisdisapproval. She was an extremely attractive girl and was accustomed toadmiration and approval. Her youngest sister, Lucy, was about the onlyperson of her acquaintance who found any real fault wit
h her. Why, thatyoung man seemed actually to scorn her! What reason had he to comepussy-footing into the library where she and her sisters were holding anintimate conversation, and all unannounced speak to them with hisraucous voice so that she nearly jumped out of her skin? Come to thinkof it, though, his voice was not really raucous, but rather pleasantand deep. Anyhow, he took her at a disadvantage from the beginning andsneered at her and bossed her, and she hated him and did not trust himone inch.

  "Daddy, may I come in?"

  Without knocking, Helen opened her father's door and ran into his room.He was lying on the sofa, covered with a heavy rug, although it was avery warm day in May. His eyes were closed and his countenance composedand for a moment the girl's heart stopped beating--could he be dead? Helooked so worn and gaunt. Strange she had not noticed it before. Shehad only thought he was getting a little thin, but she hated fat men,anyhow, and gloried in her father's athletic leanness, as she put it.Most men of his age, forty-three, had a way of getting wide in thegirth, but not her father. Forty-three! Why, this man lying there lookedsixty-three! His face was so gray, his mouth so drawn.

  Robert Carter opened his eyes and sighed wearily.

  "Who is that?" rather querulously. "Oh, Helen! I must have been asleep.I dreamed I was out far away on the water. Just your mother and I, far,far away! It was rather jolly. Funny I was trying to add up about silkstockings and I made such a ridiculous mistake. You see there are fiveof you who wear silk stockings, not counting Bobby and me. I wasn'tcounting in socks. Five persons having two legs apiece makes tenlegs--silk stockings cost one dollar apiece, no, a pair--fifty centsapiece--that makes five dollars for ten legs. Everybody has to put on anew pair every day, so that makes three hundred and sixty-five pairs ayear, three hundred and sixty-six in leap year, seven hundred and thirtystockings--that makes one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-fivedollars--thirty, in leap year--just for stockings. Seems preposterous,doesn't it? But here was my mistake, right here--people don't have toput on a new pair every day but just a clean pair, so I have to do mycalculating all over. You can help me, honey. How many pairs of silkstockings does it take to run one of you? You just say one, and I cancompute the rest."

  "Oh, Daddy, I don't know," and Helen burst out crying.

  "Well, don't cry about it. It seems funny for stockings to make any onecry. Do you know, I've been crying about them, too? It is so confusingfor people to have two legs and for leap year to have one more day, sosome years people have to have more--maybe not have more, but changethem oftener. I cry out of one eye about stockings, and the other shedstears about French chops. I feel very much worried about French chops.It seems they sell them by the piece and not by the pound as they doloin chops--ten cents apiece, so the bills say. We usually get a dozenand a half for a meal--eighteen--that's a dozen and a half. Now thereare seven of us and the four servants, that makes eleven, not quite adozen. What I am worried about is that some of you don't get two chopsapiece. I am wondering all the time which ones don't eat enough. Thereis nothing at all on one little French chop, although I'm blessed if Icould make one go down me now. But, honey, promise me if your mother andI do take this trip that this young man, whose name has escaped me, isgoing to arrange for us, that you will find out who it is among you whoeats only one chop and make 'em eat more. I am afraid it is Nan andBobby. They are more like your mother, and of course fairies don'treally eat anything to speak of--but it must be of the best--always ofthe best. She has never known anything but luxury, and luxury she musthave. What difference does it make to me? I love to work--but the daysare too short. Take some off of the night then--six hours in bed isenough for any man. Edison says even that is too much. What's that youngman's name? Well, whatever it is, I like him. He should have been anarchitect--I bet his foundations would have gone deep enough and theauthorities would never have condemned one of his walls as unsafe.That's what they did to me, but it wasn't my fault--Shockoe Creek wasthe trouble--creeping up like a thief in the night and undermining mywork."

  As Robert Carter rambled on in this weird, disconnected way, the tearswere streaming down his face and Helen, crouched on the floor by hisside, was sobbing her heart out. Could this be her Daddy? This broken,garrulous man with the gray face and tears, womanish tears, flowingshamelessly from his tired eyes? Dr. Wright was right! Their father wasa very ill man and one more ounce of care would be too much for histired brain. Had she done him harm? Maybe her coming in had upset hisreason, but she had not talked, only let him ramble on.

  A car stopping at the door! The doctor and Bobby returning with thenotary public! What must she do? Here she was in her father's room,disobeying the stern commands of the physician who could see with halfhis professional eye that she had harmed his patient. She had time toget out before the doctor could get upstairs--but no! not sneak!

  "I may be a murderess and am a selfish, headstrong, bad, foolish, vain,extravagant wretch, but I am not a sneak and I will stay right here andtake the ragging that I deserve--and no doubt will get," remembering thelash that Dr. Wright had not spared.

  The doctor entered the room very quietly, "Pussy-footing still," saidHelen to herself. He gave her only a casual glance, seeming to feel nosurprise at her presence, but went immediately to his patient, whosmiled through his tears at this young man in whom he was putting hisfaith.

  "I've been asleep, doctor, and thought I was out on the water. WhenHelen came in I awoke, but I was very glad for her to come in so shecould promise me to look into a little matter of French chops that wasworrying me. She and I have been having a little crying party about silkstockings. They seem to make her cry, too. Funny for me to cry. I havenever cried in my life that I can remember, even when I got a licking asa boy."

  "Crying is not so bad for some one who never has cried or had anythingto cry for." Helen had a feeling maybe he meant it for her but he neverlooked at her. "And now, Mr. Carter, I have a notary public downstairsand I am going to ask you to sign a paper giving to your daughter,Douglas, power of attorney in your absence. You get off to New York thisevening and sail to-morrow."

  "But, Dr. Whatsyourname, I can't leave until I attend to tickets andthings," feebly protested the nervous man.

  "Tickets bought; passage on steamer to Bermuda and Panama engaged; slowgoing steamer where you can lie on deck and loaf and loaf!"

  "Tickets bought? I have never been anywhere in my life where I have nothad to attend to everything myself. It sounds like my own funeral. Ireckon kind friends will step in then and attend to the arrangements."

  "Well, let's call this a wedding trip instead of a funeral. I will beyour best man and you and your bride can spend your honeymoon on thisvessel. The best man sometimes does attend to the tickets and in thiscase even decided where the honeymoon should be spent. I chose aSouthern trip because I want you to be warm. Very few persons go toBermuda in May, but I feel sure you will be able to rest more if youdon't have to move around to keep warm."

  "Yes, that's fine, and Annette is from the extreme South and delights inwarmth and sunlight. I feel sure you have done right and am just lyingdown like a baby and leaving everything to you," and Robert Carterclosed his eyes, smiling feebly.

  At a summons from the doctor, Douglas and the notary public entered theroom. Helen, who had stayed to get the blowing up that she had expectedfrom Dr. Wright, not having got it, still stayed just because she didnot know how to leave. No one noticed her or paid the least attention toher except the notary, who bowed perfunctorily.

  "This is the paper. You had better read it to see if it is right. Itgives your daughter full power to act in your absence." Dr. Wright spokeslowly and gently and his voice never seemed to startle the sick man.

  "Is Miss Carter of age?" asked the notary. "Otherwise she would havesome trouble in any legal matter that might arise."

  "Of age! No! I am only eighteen."

  "I never thought of that," said Mr. Carter.

  "Nor I, fool that I am," muttered the young physician.

  "Oh, well
, let me make you her guardian, or better still, give you powerof attorney," suggested Mr. Carter.

  "Me, oh, I never bargained for that!" The patient feebly began to weepat this obstacle. You never can tell what is going to upset a nervousprostrate. "Well, all right. I can do it if it is up to me," the doctormuttered. "Put my name in where we have Miss Carter's," he said to thenotary. "George Wright is my name."

  "I'm so glad to know your name; that is one of the things that has beenworrying me," said the patient, as he signed his name and the notaryaffixed his seal after the oaths were duly taken.